News

"He was emotionally abusive to the point where I had to have a lawyer intervene and was afraid for my life."

Oct 25, 2017By Christopher RobertsPhotography by Koury Angelo

Former Real Estate guitarist and Ducktails leader Matt Mondanile is currently under a thick cloud of sexual assault allegations after seven women came forward and accused him of sexually assaulting them in some manner over the years and Real Estate issued a statement to say that he was fired from the band "in February 2016 when allegations of unacceptable treatment of women were brought to our attention." Now singer/songwriter/pianist Julia Holter has posted a statement to her Facebook account in which she alleges that Mondanile was emotionally abusive.

Holter and Mondanile reportedly previously dated and Holter was featured on Ducktails' 2015 album St. Catherine. "In my experience, he was emotionally abusive to the point where I had to have a lawyer intervene and was afraid for my life," Holter writes. She doesn't overly go into the specifics of her experiences with Mondanile, but instead supports the other victims who have come forward about Mondanile. "Their allegations are in line with each other and they are in line with what I came to know about Matt in the past, which is that he does not have boundaries," she writes. Read the whole statement below.

In May 2016 Real Estateannounced that Matt Mondanile had left the band to focus on his Ducktails project. Real Estate went on to release a new album without Mondanile, In Mind, in March of this year via Domino. Meanwhile this month Mondanile self-released a new Ducktails album, Jersey Devil, on his own New Images label (he was previously also on Domino). SPIN recently posted a lengthy article that details specific allegations from seven different women who allege that Mondanile sexually assaulted them in some manner.